The Snappy Day!

Ginger has turned all green now. You wouldn't even know that she was white and blooming last week. Snap is hanging onto the white blooms for the beauty that they are. The Snap is showing out in front. He knows that I haven't taken a picture of him in his first blooming year. Ginger thinks I am not paying attention and since she is in full sun all day, she bloomed quickly and now is full and green. Snap, although it is his first season, is showing out with the white plumes. Beautiful!

Happy Birthday to Aunt Ra Ra,

caught me with $100 card to my favorite store(this week). I took out my trumpet and my shopping buddies and "ta da da da...Charge it!" We went shopping. Through the store with 100 and more need than money. We, at first decided to split it, but as an afterthought I walked down one of the aisles and something jumped off the shelves and jumped into my cart and I know that it was meant to be mine today.
I finally bought my very first, pressure cooker. What? What is a pressure cooker? We really don't see them much anymore. With microwaves, who needs pressure. Well, I feel like I'm really a woman now, at least in the sight of the old ladies, in my family. Stage one was having a baby, then you were allowed to speak in a meeting. Stage two was the pressure cooker. The pressure cooker symbolizes cooking things for someone other than yourself. Taking the time to think about the needs of somebody other than yourself. Pressure to cook and pressure to be the momma and pressure to feed your children something healthy, like it or not and make them like it.
When I would come over Grandma Ruth, she would sweet talk my Ben. Sassily, she would lead him to the pressure cooker. You want some limas, Ben. I know that Jayne is not feeding you limas, is she? I should be ashamed, she was saying. Today, I am cooking the pinto beans, in the hopes that that will make me one of the old ladies, in the future. Passing down the freshness of love making in the kitchen. The home cooked hugs and memories that make traditions and life. I love you says the pressure cooker. Once I learn to cook with it. We'll see.

The blooms on Ginger and Snap are white and full.

It is glorious, the first blooms of my peartrees. They are young and this seems to be their first spring apart from eachother. Ginger is more ostentatious than her brother. Her blooms are bigger and more full on the tiny branches. She is not front and center. I think that this is what makes her bloom more vociferously to try to get attention from me. I do take a second take at her when she is blooming like that. Snap, who I initially thought the more outgoing of the two has become more shy with the front and center spot. He took quite a beating through the winter, but he is still hanging in there.
I await placing my figs and naming them and my Japanese maple. They are cluttering up my kitchen and I want them out on their own to adorn my future patio. Beautiful small blooms are coming out of Japanese maple and they are adorable, but I do not trust little fingers with buds.:{

Jehovah Raffa, The Lord who Heals

This is a sick day in our house and Snap has popcorn blooms to comfort us, outside our window.

We spent the morning talking about the book of Esther with the little fellows, probably a little much for them. But all of God's Word is profitable for something, for correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. It will take the rest of their lives for them to recuperate from this morning's devotional. God is the healer of us body and soul. I will believe and trust Him that this good day that He has made, will prove to the glory of His will and to the good of my undying soul in That day. It doesn't feel good to be sick and to remain sick. But God is good and He said that He gently leads those who are with young. It scares me that if the past 20 years has been the gentle hand, what is in store for the future...

It's the Ides of March, and Friday the thirteenth and raining, all at the same time.

The absolute lowest part of the year, I suppose, is symbolized by the ides of March this year. There must be a poem about, if the ides is raining there are 6 more months of economic strain or something. The old people always had some way of licking their fingers and seeing which way the wind was blowing. A rainy ides could also symbolize a productive planting season. I don't have any of the old people in my life to ask those questions of.

My father-in-law was so chock full of these truisms. He would say this day or that day is borrowing from somewhere else, as though the seasons have a certain number of rain and cold and sun days and they had to pay one another back and keep calculations as to which month had too many of any one kind of day. I had never thought of it that way. Each season is in debt to each other season a certain number of days. It seemed, my father-in-law was saying: God is the banker and they borrow from him and lend them to us and we have to use them for His glory.
Now, what would he say about a rainy ides and the Friday the thirteenth and an economic recession all in line with eachother. He would say, God is sovereign and He will provide.
I have to believe him.

Mercy came running!

Appropriate pressure was not placed upon that endeavor and the ball hit the net.

Double fault! What a mess. Hit yourself in the head. Wake up and look at the next point in the match.

You toss and you toss and you must hit the ball and hit it hard to make it get over the net. If there is no pressure there is no movement. Senioritis is a sickness that needs a strong hand and an intense maternal impression placed upon it to guide one through.

I had no idea that her case was as severe as it is. I love senioritis, it keeps the memory of scholastics alive long past the senior year. This is my 30 year anniversary of having had senioritis.

No excuses and no racquet change, no bending down to tie your shoes again and again because you are winded. Get up and serve the ball. Put that maternal pressure to bear upon the backside of the child and move her to where you want her to be. Like it or not. No nonsense, so to speak!

Sometimes I swing too hard and miss the ball completely

Sometimes the toss is perfect and the wind is just right and my arm is aching to take that ball right to the ace spot. Not this one, says my arm and I let the toss go. I don't serve it up.

Does God say, first one in or this is for real. Does He give us a couple of practice serves before He enters us into the match. I have 3 girls and I have 3 boys. When I toss them. Up and down, like the little tennis balls and use the maternal pressure of my racquet to direct them into play, am I playing against God or against the devil. The devil is a very good partner and he buys you suzyqus and hogs the court. You could just about do nothing and get a very good score, but you will always lose.
God will let you play every point. He never ever hogs but you will always learn and win, even though it looks like you are losing.

Let that toss go He says. I argue with Him. I could have aced that one. That is my favorite toss to hit the American Twist serve. He says hit a flat serve into center of the box and see what happens. Then I won't get to put the ball away, I retort. But I will listen. I hit the flat serve and the other person gets it back. Something I hate, HATE to see. I don't want to have to play the point out. I don't want to stay in the back court, I want to serve and volley and get this point over with. That is not the point of the game on this parenting thing, says God to me. Play the point and I will be there in every rally.

Every rally in the back court with the Lord, is way better than winners on every point with the devil.

We got peachypoo inside, just in the nick of time.

She would not have made it amidst all of this snow that we had. I brought her inside for the winter for protection. But her leaves were drooping at the 2 days of rain that we had that she had no parts of. We took her outside to enjoy the wonderful rain and then. 2 to 3 inches of snow came down just as we brought her inside. She had a fun day in the rain and the children enjoyed immensely being at home from school. I hope peachypoo appreciates it enough to give me some peaches and not just the beautiful blooms which she is so generous with.

The toss!

I love practicing the tosses of my serves, volleyball and tennis. When I get the perfect toss I capow that ball to just the right spot in my minds' eye. It seems so easy when the cloth or leather ball is in my hands and hasn't a will of its own.
This weekend, both of my women were away from me. O my, what a heart ache. Not that I don't want to see them soar, I do. But these tosses out into the stratusphere are painful. I can't see over the net to the other side to where they are going. They are not made of cloth and leather and I am not as skilled as I am with a tennis or volleyball. Crosscourt to the backhand, American twist to the corner and then up to the net for the volley. They are stubborn. I will have to wait for a few more tosses to know the best time to hit these ladies into the courts of life and put them into play. Until then, I toss!